The logo glows neon red in the window: a solitary hand, positioned in a way to suggest a traffic cop ordering you to halt. Frankly, stopping for a pour-over or a freshly made hand pie at La Mano Coffee Bar in Takoma might just be the best way to start your day.

Spanish and Italian for "hand," La Mano is a joint project from Modern Times Coffeehouse owner Javier Rivas and his business partner, Anna Petrillo, the longtime manager of the coffee shop in the basement of Politics & Prose. The name of the Takoma operation, far from directing you to stop in your tracks, is supposed to conjure up images of products still prepared by hand, whether a pour-over of single-origin coffee or a buttermilk biscuit pressed out with a cutter.

The name underscores "the importance of the person behind the product," Rivas tells me during a phone chat. The hand, not coincidentally, is also one of the five essential components that Counter Culture Coffee apparently emphasizes when training baristas, Rivas explains.

As good as the outsourced goods are, you'd be a fool to bypass the house-made hand pies (the blueberry one was a compact crescent of sweet, buttery bliss) or house-made buttermilk biscuits (crisp around the edges and fluffy in the center, with a kick of salt on the finish). La Mano even makes its own peach or blueberry butters to pair with those biscuits.

The specialty coffee bar keeps things simple. The drink menu is limited to pour-overs as well as an Americano, macchiato, cortado, cappuccino, latte, mocha, hot chocolate and a few teas. Brewed coffee is not an option. Rather than brewing up a drum of industrial-strength coffee for the morning crowd slogging its way to the Takoma Metro, La Mano prepares about two gallons of French-press coffee, which baristas then filter and hold in Luxus thermal containers.

"It's a good morning coffee," Rivas says. It satisfies "all those people who want their heavy, dark, bold coffee in the morning."

Tim Carman serves as the full-time writer for the Post's Food section and as the $20 Diner for the Weekend section, a double duty that requires he ingest more calories than a draft horse.

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